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ORLANDO — While the road may not have always been clear, the destination for Canada’s men’s national soccer team and head coach John Herdman is.

Herdman was brought on board to do with the men’s program what he did for the women. And while it may not be an easy task considering the historical struggles of the program, the course he has plotted was working as Canada looked to take a giant leap towards qualifying for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar against the United States at Exploria Stadium on Friday.

VAN DIEST: Canada's World Cup qualifying fate was in own handsBack to video

Things did not go as planned, losing 4-1 to the United States but the plan remains the same and the goal is still in sight despite the setback.

“It’s World Cup qualification, Hex qualification, CONCACAF points, to get to the Nations League semifinal, to give us the FIFA points and that’s it, there’s nothing else our minds right now,” Herdman said in his pre-match media conference Thursday.

“We’ve heard all that the stuff on the outside and what’s being said about the team but we just need points, it’s that simple. We want to go to the World Cup, we want to take this country to the World Cup and games like this, it’s another Cup final. Other teams will have other motivations but for us, we have to win these games, we have to pick up points. We’ve got to finish top of the Nations League, it’s life or death.”

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Canada has not qualified for a World Cup since its only appearance in 1986 in Mexico.

In reality, they’ve never really come close to qualifying for another World Cup since as getting to the final group stage in qualifying (Hex) has proven a chore in recent qualifying cycles.

For Qatar, CONCACAF changed the qualifying format, and instead of playing their way into the top six to battle for three-and-a-half qualifying spots, teams will be awarded a spot based on their FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings.

Originally, Herdman and Canada believe a complex CONCACAF ranking system would be used to determine the top six but halfway through the process of playing in the Nations League — a first-year regional tournament — were informed it would be FIFA rankings points instead.

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Regardless, all it means is Canada needs to earn points from every game they play, which has limited its ability to schedule exhibition matches against higher-ranked opponents for fear of sliding down the world list.

The United States and Mexico are the only higher-ranked opponents Canada has played since Herdman took over the program. They lost 3-1 to Mexico in the group stage of the Gold Cup this past summer.

If Canada would have gone through to the semifinal of the Nations League, then bigger fish would have awaited, worth even more ranking points.

Failure to get in the top six, would leave Canada vying with the rest of the minnows in CONCACAF for the half spot; eventually to be contested against another federation.

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Following a disappointing exit in the Gold Cup where Canada blew a 2-0 halftime lead in a 3-2 loss to Haiti in the quarter-final, it appeared getting into the Hex would prove extremely difficult. But following their 2-0 win against the United States at BMO Field in October, Canada had its fate in its own hands.

“Yeah, it was an it was an emotional time coming out of the Gold Cup and experiencing that and a couple of changes had been made around the ranking system, the CONCACAF ranking system had been moved on somehow and now it was FIFA ranking and we saw ourselves sitting in eighth place and (the Hex) was quite a way away.” Herdman said. “But I sat down with my mentor and he said that wisdom doesn’t grow on good days and this now is your biggest and best opportunity.

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“Coming out of his house, I sat on his couch for about four hours just chatting with him, I came out of that and realized that’s what this was all about and these are the moments now. If we turn this around, what a hell of a story this is going to be, it’ll be a football fairy tale if Canada can push through.”

Despite the result against the United States, there is still a lot left to do for Canada to get into the Hex and then once in it to get to Qatar.

According to Duane Rollins host of the SoccerToday podcast in Toronto, a win against the United States would have given Canada a 95% chance of getting into the Hex. A loss dropped it to 10%.

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Eventually, Canada is going to have to convince higher-calibre opponents to take the field against them to prepare for the challenge of World Cup qualifying once it begins next year. You can’t run a marathon training just 10 kilometres a day.

“I think for this group their experience at the Gold Cup has really fired them up and as a group we really feel like we came off page during that period of time,” Herdman said. “Those lessons have been massive for us that we have to stick to the plan. We have a plan and we have to stick to it, regardless if we’re under pressure or we’re under adversity. Playing teams like the U.S. and Mexico give us a chance to test our identity.”

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